follow_path {escalation}

Follow a pre-determined dose administration path.

Description

This method creates a dose selector that will follow a pre-specified trial path. Whilst the trial path is matched by realised outcomes, the selector will recommend the next dose in the desired sequence. As soon as the observed outcomes diverge from the desired path, the selector stops giving dose recommendations. This makes it possible, for instance, to specify a fixed escalation plan that should be followed until the first toxicity is seen. This tactic is used by some model-based designs to get rapidly to the doses where the action is. See, for example, the dfcrm package and Cheung (2011).

Usage

follow_path(path)

Arguments

path

Follow this outcome path. See parse_phase1_outcomes.

Value

an object of type selector_factory that can fit a dose-finding model to outcomes.

References

Cheung. Dose Finding by the Continual Reassessment Method. 2011. Chapman and Hall/CRC. ISBN 9781420091519

Examples

model1 <- follow_path(path = '1NNN 2NNN 3NNN 4NNN')

fit1 <- model1 %>% fit('1NNN 2N')
fit1 %>% recommended_dose()
fit1 %>% continue()
# The model recommends continuing at dose 2 because the observed outcomes
# perfectly match the desired escalation path.

fit2 <- model1 %>% fit('1NNN 2NT')
fit2 %>% recommended_dose()
fit2 %>% continue()
# Uh oh. Toxicity has now been seen, the outcomes diverge from the sought
# path, hence this class recommends no dose now.
# At this point, we can hand over dose selection decisions to another class
# by chaining them together, like:
model2 <- follow_path(path = '1NNN 2NNN 3NNN 4NNN') %>%
  get_dfcrm(skeleton = c(0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.4, 0.6), target = 0.25)
fit3 <- model2 %>% fit('1NNN 2NT')
# Now the CRM model is using all of the outcomes to calculate the next dose:
fit3 %>% recommended_dose()
fit3 %>% continue()